aloha

Aloha, a Breese-Wilde 5 Monoplane, NX914, flown by Martin Jensen

Aloha, a Breese-Wilde 5 Monoplane, NX914, flown by Martin Jensen

The Aloha Airlines 737 in the photo (N73711, Boeing 737-297, c/n 20209/152) would be involved in one of the most significant aviation incidents of the past 30 years.

On April 28, 1988, the aircraft would be flying Aloha Airlines Flight 243, from Hilo to Honolulu with 90 passengers and 5 flight crew aboard, when it would suffer explosive decompression at approximately 24,000-feet, losing 18-feet of its upper fuselage from just forward of the wing to just behind the forward main cabin door. The aircraft would make a successful emergency landing at Kahului Airport (OGG / PHOG) on Maui.

Sadly, Clarabelle "C.B." Lansing, an Aloha flight attendant, would lose her life as she was reportedly blown out of the aircraft as its upper fuselage tore away over the Pacific Ocean. While many of the passengers aboard would suffer injury, Ms. Lansing would represent the sole fatality.

The failure of the aircraft's cabin would be attributed to metal fatigue caused by years of service flying relatively short hops between the Hawaiian islands, with frequent compression and decompression cycles in a salt air coastal environment.

As a result of Aloha Flight 243, more stringent inspection standards were implemented for older airliners and an untold number of lives have been saved.

Here's a photo of the aircraft in the immediate aftermath of the incident:

Hawaiian Air Tours / Hawaiian Air Tour Service (HATS) and their DH-104 Dove (reg. N134G), wearing fleet number "7" on its vertical stabilizer in the photo above, make a cameo appearance in the circa-1960s "America!" television series episode entitled, "A Heaven Called Honolulu," at the 17min 24sec mark.
See:
YouTube - Periscope Film - 'America! A Heaven Called Honolulu' - 32605z